History
The first protective wall (enceinte) was built in the 17th century under Louis de Buade, sieur de Frontenac. A plan of fortifications was developed by the French military engineer Jacques Levasseur de Néré (1662–1723) and approved by Louis XIV's commissary general of fortifications Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban in 1701. Considerable work took place on the fortifications after the fall of Louisbourg in 1745 under the direction of military engineer Gaspard-Joseph Chaussegros de Léry.
The existing star-shaped fortifications were built by the United Kingdom between 1820 and 1831 under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel Elias Walker Durnford of the Royal Engineers, and incorporated a section of the French enceinte (enclosure) of 1745. Their purpose was to secure the strategic heights of Cap Diamant against the Americans and to serve as a refuge for the British garrison in the event of attack or rebellion. The preservation of much of the fortifications and defences of Quebec is due to the intervention of Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, Governor General of Canada 1872–1878, who also established the Citadelle as a vice-regal residence.
The Quebec Conferences of 1943 and 1944, in which Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and William Lyon Mackenzie King discussed strategy for World War II, were held at the Citadelle of Quebec.
The Citadelle has been the home station of the Royal 22e Régiment of the Canadian Forces since 1920. In addition to its use as a military installation, it has been also an official residence of the Queen in Right of Canada and the Governor General of Canada since 1872, who by tradition resides there for several weeks out of the year. (The Governor General's primary official residence is Rideau Hall in Ottawa.)
Read more about this topic: Citadelle Of Quebec
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“The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“English history is all about men liking their fathers, and American history is all about men hating their fathers and trying to burn down everything they ever did.”
—Malcolm Bradbury (b. 1932)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)